September 13, 2019

With talk of the 14^th General Election (GE) round the corner, Associate Professor Bertha Henson and Ms Christalle Tay (NUS Department of Communications and New Media), in an editorial in Yahoo! News, offer a timely introduction to the history of the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) scheme in Singapore and its place in the political scene.

The idea of having GRCs originated from the government’s desire for greater racial minority representation in Parliament. A committee was set up in the 1980s to gather feedback regarding the GRC scheme – 50 supported it, 28 supported the principle to ensure a multi-racial Parliament but not through the GRC scheme, and 18 were against both the GRC scheme and the principle behind it. GRCs were introduced in 1988 and teams competing in them must include a member from a minority race.

The scheme placed more pressure on the opposition’s already limited number of candidates and forced parties to make adjustments; in the 1988 GE, the Workers’ Party (WP) absorbed Barisan Socialis and Singapore United Front so as to pool candidates. Opposition parties struggled even more in the elections from 1991 to 2001 as the minimum members in many GRCs started to increase from three to a high of six – this had also decreased the number of Single Member Constituencies (SMCs).

Criticism against the GRC scheme as handicapping the opposition began to surface, stating that voters would not reject a PAP slate because they would not want to risk losing a minister within that group. In 2011, this assumption was refuted when the WP won the five-member Aljunied GRC. The WP had proved that opposition parties could adapt to and overcome the GRC’s structural constraints.

However, A/P Henson and Ms Tay believe the People’s Action Party still holds a GRC-linked card up its sleeve – victory in a GRC means that the team must also administer and manage its corresponding town council. As demonstrated by the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council saga, this creates more room for opposition parties, with scant experience in managing a town council, to make mistakes.

Read the article here.